MyHCHC
BA 2017, Human DevelopmentCanonsburg, PA
Mariam owes not only her education but, it could be said, her very existence to HCHC—her parents met as fellow students here. Both Fr. George and Presvytera Dianthe graduated from Hellenic College and Fr. George went on to earn his Master of Divinity degree from Holy Cross. It would be natural to think that they wanted their daughter to enroll at their alma mater. “But they never pressured me,” Mariam says. “In fact, other grads I knew urged me more strongly to consider Hellenic.”
Mariam visited the campus and loved what she saw and felt. “Everyone was welcoming, and some of the students invited me along to a soup kitchen where they volunteered. So I witnessed actions of giving and fellowship on and off campus.” That experience meshed well with Mariam’s desire for a life path devoted to helping people and led her to enroll at Hellenic as a Human Development major.
“The school gave me so many opportunities and a lot of my classes were phenomenal,” she recalls, “but I knew it was up to me to discern my own direction.” By her junior year, Mariam had developed an interest in human resources and soon thereafter the College introduced the option of a minor in Human Resources Management. “That was it for me.” In addition to her coursework, not to mention serving as president of her graduating class, Mariam was a human resources intern at a local senior care facility affiliated with Harvard Medical School.
Scholarships “were a huge factor” in allowing Mariam to get her degree. Grateful as she is for the financial assistance itself, she appreciates equally the fact that a good many scholarships offered at HCHC are targeted to specific kinds of students. “It’s wonderful to feel as if someone out there wants to support you in particular and see you succeed.”
Today, less than two years out of college, Mariam is an HR Operations Supervisor at the corporate headquarters of Creative Financial Staffing, a nationwide firm, in downtown Boston. She leads a team of four people handling, among other things, payroll for a thousand individuals. “I’m very happy at this company—they reward good work and initiative. CFS is growing and I plan to grow along with it.”
Mariam’s happiness these days is personal as well as professional. She will soon marry Marios Adamakis, who works in HR for the public school system in Framingham, Massachusetts. In a case of history repeating itself, they met as students at Hellenic College, just the way her parents did.